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Rats!!
Daisy Peatfingers
Posts: 15
in Talkback
Help! Just watching a large brown rat chasing the birds inmy garden..in broad daylight!! We live in rural North Wales..2 acres of garden..well tended(!!)..called the local council who sent pest controller yesterday and set bait boxes...what can I do? Scary!!!
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No..we are pretty isolated here..we've been here for 33 years and this is honestly the first time I've encountered this..Yes I feed the birds(always have) ..and 2 visiting badgers..This rat is very agressive ,protecting his/her territory I suppose. But it is really frightening me.
The poison put down by the pest controllers should soon do its work. It's not pleasant having to kill things, but sometimes it's the best option.
It's not necessarily down to anything you've done. Rats will eat anything, including each other,and a garden is full of both animal and vegetable matter they will feed on.
Try not to panic, it's not the end of the world, rats were living on the land long before your house was built there
Their presence doesn't mean there's anything wrong with your garden, just that you have lots of free food for them as you're feeding the birds, so the rats will see that as an invitation to come and visit!
We've just had rats in our garden for the first time since we moved in 5 years ago. I sought free help from a humane pest control company and the rats have gone now, and not a single whisker was harmed!
They give free advice: http://humanewildlifesolutions.co.uk/
How I got rid of the rats in my garden was to stop putting any food out for the birds and hedgehogs, and then locate the rat's burrows and dig them up, rats are scared by change to their surroundings, they hate it, and sure enough the rats seem to have moved on now
Can start feeding the birds again in a few weeks, but there's no guarantee they won't come back, unfortunately feeding the birds does encourage mice and rats too!
Hope that helps
Hmm.... how can you be sure, Laurasquirrel, that your rats didn't move on to Daisy's garden?
Wonder if they can do anything about next door's dogs at 2 in the morning
We had to call the rat catchers in a few years ago - I only saw one or two rats - but like you Daisy Peatfingers I was horrified to think that WE had rats in the garden. We didn't have a cat at the time. We had pet rabbits at the time so that was another concern. The r.c. told us to feed the rabbits (in their bowl) but remove the bowl from their cage after 20 minutes - just to give the rabbits time to feed but not leave the food out all day to tempt the rats, - he also thought that our compost area which is exposed would encourage rats. Our neighbours now have a cat, so although the birds aren't so keen to visit neither are the rats.
Thank you everyone for your helpful comments and advice. I am now lying down with a damp cloth on my head ..even more horrified than usual, as our nearest neighbour (a mile away down the lane..) was passing by and engaged Mr Peatfingers(aged 69 and seven eighths...) in a ratty conversation...the neighbour(now known as 'Dead-eye Dick', for reasons about to be revealed...) then returned home, only to reappear a while later with his air rifle and SHOT aforementioned Roland Rat between the eyes as he (Roland) frolicked on the patio!!! I'm truly horrified....Now worrying we've left Roland's family fatherless....there is no hope for me.... xxx
We occasionally see rats in the garden.I came across one that was waiting outside the kitchen door and we eyed each other up for a while until the rat courteously stepped back a couple of paces to let me pass. I'm not sentimental about them nor do I anthropormorphise the creatures, but they are out there all the time and unless they become a menace then I work on the principal of live and let live. Shooting them is certainly a quick way to get rid of one and is better than using poison.
Hello! I always feed birds from a feeder and as PansyFace says have a tray below to catch falling nuts & other foodstuffs that you feed them... try & collect the scraps as much as possible to stop these infernal pests, as a bite from a rat can cause terrible pain and causing Weils disease and rat-bite fever resulting in liver and kidney damage!.. possible handling of rat scat.